| El Rod | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Roger William Saro |
| Born | August 11, 1984 Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Genres | Funk, pop, indie pop, electro, hip-hop |
| Occupations | Singer, songwriter, vocalist, arranger |
| Years active | 2010–present |
| Labels | Independent |
| Website | El Rod on Facebook |
Roger "El Rod" Saro is a half Surinamese, half Native American singer, vocalist and songwriter whose diverse style incorporates elements of funk, pop, indie pop, electro and hip-hop. In addition to singing lead and backing vocals, El Rod also raps and sometimes arranges the songs he wrote and performs on. Sometimes his music doesn’t contain actual singing. He often uses his voice as a percussive instrument with frequent rhythmic grunts and chants with rhythm-section patterns. He released his debut EP “Art Nouveau” in June 2011.[1]
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El Rod was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands on August 11, 1984, to Maira Maria Saro, a young freelance model and Steven William Arnhem. His mother is of Surinamese descent and his father is of Native American and Surinamese descent. His parents split up almost immediately after he was born so he was solely raised by his mother.
His interest in music started very early on as he not only danced to Michael Jackson songs in his room, but surprisingly knew the lyrics to the songs in detail. He studied the English language and took a liking to it after he noticed he had a knack for it. He would watch television shows and tried to avoid reading the Dutch subtitles so he could memorize the English words. He also read a lot of English Marvel comics. The name El Rod was given to him by his cousin, actually meaning “Little Rod”. His family always called him Rodney instead of Roger, (in a similar way “Robert” turns to “Bobby” or “William” turns to “Bill”) so because of his petite height and his nickname, the stage name “El Rod” was born. Early in his career he worked with several well-known Dutch musicians. Pete Philly & Perquisite requested to work with him on a song for their sophomore album “Mystery Repeats”. (The song never made it past the demo stage, thus not appearing on the final product.) He also worked with Dutch pop/soul singer Jenny Lane whom he met during a music camp. El Rod wrote a reference track called “Enjoy Yourself”. It was the first time he wrote for another artist and discovered that he had the know-how to come up with melodies. House DJ Don Diablo was also part of the camp and was aware of El Rod’s music. They recorded some rough demo vocals. Blogger Nalden often posted about El Rod on his popular site Nalden.net and even DJ Tom Trago asked to collaborate. All these behind-the-scenes experiences with established artists helped him in his growth to become a very well-rounded musician. Even though El Rod is an artist, personally he's a very private person. Tending to keep to himself, for a long time he adamantly avoided participating in social media and didn't even own a cellphone. He would use email, payphone cards or small scraps of paper with numbers scribbled on them to get in touch with people. He created a Facebook account under pressure from his friends complaining that he should be as active on the internet as he is in real life. He also created a Twitter account but deleted it the very next day. Eventually settling into Facebook, he now uses that platform as his only social media tool.
Late 2010 El Rod quietly released his online single “Picky”[2] to overwhelming response. The minimalistic Prince-inspired track was featured on popular sites like 22tracks.com and Ajanaku.com and gained a modest cult following. DJ and director of the Dutch film “Rabat” Jim Taihuttu, praised the song on Twitter and P. Fabergé (from the Dutch band “De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig”) praised El Rod in his “Double Dutch” column in Vice Magazine. Following the good response on the song El Rod was ready to officially release some music. His friend, producer/songwriter Joveek Murphy just signed a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell music and was interested in creating something totally new and they started recording songs together. His debut EP 'Art Nouveau' was the outcome. El Rod was inspired by artists such as Sia, The xx, Roisin Murphy, Goldfrapp, Radiohead, James Blake, Prince and Justin Timberlake. Studying song structure, vocal arrangements and the overall sound of a mixed record. While searching for inspiration El Rod started traveling. He visited Martin Margiela’s exhibition in MOMO in Antwerp, trekked through Berlin and visited fashion shows in Paris during fashion week all to broaden his horizon and to soak up knowledge. During his stay in Paris he came up with the 'Art Nouveau' title. His love interests inspired El Rod to become a very visual writer. Focusing on imagery and scenery, women play a huge role in El Rod’s creative process.
‘Art Nouveau’ was released independently on June 9th in conjunction with jeans brand Wrangler and popular European website Ajanaku.com. El Rod had a releaseparty in the Jimmy Woo, the most popular nightclub in Amsterdam celebrating the release. The project was offered exclusively to Ajanaku.com. The site has an international allure and a wide range of visitors from all over the globe. This caused the project to be noticed by people in Denmark, Sweden, Londen and France. Currently El Rod is slowly building his fanbase in his hometown Amsterdam and Europe through the internet. On October 13th he released a deluxe edition [3] of the EP. The releaseparty was held at Hannekes Boom in Amsterdam. [4]
Wrangler also participated in the release of the EP. The out-of-the-box partnership came from El Rod’s behind the scenes experience and knowledge of how the music industry works;
“The way people purchase music has drastically changed. They rarely buy CD’s anymore. They just download or stream it. Linking your name to a brand, a store or even a magazine makes the artist more of a brand instead of “just” an artist. I believe this is the best way for up & coming acts and bands to profile themselves. Nowadays creating your own following, look and sound will eventually offer more opportunities than the traditional “record deal” will”.
El Rod teamed up with Wrangler after being introduced to their visual merchandiser Gino Gersie. Wrangler had a new way of promoting their brand via a daring project called PGA (Product Giveaway) Dutch celebrities like Waylon and Marly van der Velden (from the Dutch series “Goede tijden, slechte tijden”) receive clothes from Wrangler which will in turn enhance the visibility of the brand. Gino offered El Rod to be part of the project, while El Rod proposed Wrangler with an offer to jointly release “Art Nouveau”.
El Rod teamed up with the partner of Dutch fashion designer Antoine Peters, Karen van de Kraats to create the artwork for “Art Nouveau”. Every track featured on “Art Nouveau” has its own individual cover art. Specifically aimed at the progressive rate gadgets and multimedia is going, the covers are best visible on the iPads and iPhones. El Rod: "When you ‘sweep’ from song to song you will see a different cover, which gives you something to look at. I wanted the artwork to tell a story. It doesn’t replace the actual CD booklet, the nostalgic feeling of unwrapping the CD and reading the credits. But it’s more so “nostalgia meets multimedia”.